This study offers a new approach to one of the central elements of Hebrew and Semitic grammar, viz. the binyanim or conjugations. Using various quantitative methods, the book analyzes the complete verbal vocabulary of the Hebrew Bible as contained in the machine-readable text developed at the Werkgroep Informatica (Department of Biblical Studies, Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam) focusing on morphological characteristics as well as on some basic semantic and syntactic features. It is argued, i.a., that the Qal should be regarded as the default binyan of the Hebrew Bible, and that the Pi` `el acts to some extent as a rival to the Qal. Among the features discussed, it is transitivity which emerges as the most important one. The author (1959) reads theology at the University of Amsterdam, specializing in Old Testament studies and Biblical Hebrew. After his 1990 Leiden PhD on a linguistic comparison of the books of Samuel, Kings, and Chronicles, he joined the Werkgroep Informatica in 1992.

Using the VU University syntactically analyzed, hiearchically structured database of ancient languages, the authors compared the Masoretic text of Kings to the Syriac Peshitta translation. The core question in this comparison is: which deviations between the two texts are related to the requirements of the distinct language systems, which are related to other aspects of the translation process, and which are related to the transmission history of the translated text? Though linguistic and text-historical approaches differ in method and focus, research into ancient biblical translations must take both into account. On the basis of a synoptic matching at clause level, corresponding phrases within the clauses are matched, and corresponding words within phrases. A choice out of a wealth of detailed differences thus brought to light are discussed at the syntactic level at which the phenomenon best fits: word, phrase, clause and above the clause.

Learning any language is no small task, not least one that sounds as unusual as Hebrew does to most English speakers’ ears. Going Deeper with Biblical Hebrew primarily aims to equip second-year grammar students of biblical Hebrew to read the Hebrew Scriptures. Using a variety of linguistic approaches, H. H. Hardy II and Matthew McAffee offer a comprehensive and up-to-date textbook for professors and students.

By applying markedness to Semitic morphology in a rigorous manner, this book brings to bear a venerable linguistic construct on a persistent philological crux, in order to achieve deeper clarity in the structures and workings of Canaanite and Hebrew verbs.

Early Old Babylonian economy and society are analyzed in this volume. The first part presents all the relevant cuneiform documents published before 2002, about 1200 in number. As far as possible, the texts are situated in their original archival context. A short summary of the content of each of them is given and, if necessary, there is an accompanying discussion of specific problems. Each reconstructed archive is followed by a description of the activities recorded in it and by a study of its protagonists. A family tree is often added to clarify the history of the archive. In the second part of the volume, the data presented in the archival study are integrated in a comprehensive analysis of the early Old Babylonian economy. Aspects of economy, such as land and labor management, trade, crafts and credit are evaluated and situated in their specific historical context.

The remarkable extension in depth and width of Muslim intellectual life can be fathomed and measured only against the background of what went on immediately before, and simultaneously elsewhere, or it will remain, in any real sense, unexplored." This statement by the late Franz Rosenthal is, in a sense, the red thread of the present volume which unites 35 articles by renowned scholars of Islamic Studies, Middle Eastern Languages and Civilizations, and various allied fields of research in honour of a scholar congenial to Franz Rosenthal and exemplary in his scientific carefulness and integrity: Dr Gerhard Endress, Professor of Oriental Philology and Islamic Studies at the Ruhr University Bochum. Central topics of the contributions include Arabic philosophy and its Greek sources and Latin reception, the history and historiography of Arabic-Islamic science, and Islamic concepts of language, knowledge, science and pedagogy. Other articles deal with qur'anic studies, Arabic lexicography and linguistics, the history of Middle Eastern civilizations, the medieval translation movements from Greek into Arabic and from Arabic into Latin as well as with political and eschatological theories of medieval Islam. Rooted in different scientific traditions and methodological approaches the studies collected in this Festschrift form a vivid and stimulating synopsis of more than 1000 years of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean intellectual, social and cultural history.

Since the beginning of critical scholarship biblical texts have been dated using linguistic evidence. Until now there has been no introduction to and comprehensive overview of the field. Volume 2 of Linguistic Dating of Biblical Texts contains an extensive overview of dates attributed to different books and corpora of the Hebrew Bible in modern scholarship, demonstrating the lack of consensus on the dating of biblical texts. A synthesis of the main arguments of the work is presented, drawing also on many points from volume 1, followed by 50 pages of case studies, a list of linguistic features attributed to LBH in earlier research, a bibliography of 70 pages and several indexes.

This Festschrift honours Dr. Gerrit Reinink on the occasion of the end of his professional career as a senior lecturer of Syriac and Aramaic studies at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands. The Festschrift includes, in addition to a brief biography and a complete bibliography of Reinink's scholarly writings, fifteen articles, arranged according to the chronology of their topics and covering a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the days of Julian the Apostate to the year of the fall of Constantinople, through the period of Late Antiquity, the Byzantine period, early Islam and the Middle Ages. The authors are all prominent experts in the field of Syriac studies and adjacent areas. The title of the book, Syriac Polemics, is a clear reference to one of Reinink's favourite research topics: Eastern Christian reactions to the rise of Islam. This volume is a valuable contribution to the study of Syriac literature and culture in general.

The volume contains forty-seven contributions dealing with Islamic thought and history, Arabic literature and linguistics. The variety of perspectives and approaches, and the wide range of subject matters constitute a true mirror of European scholarship in Arabic and Islamic studies. The authors who congregated for the 19th congress of the Union Europeenne des Arabisants et Islamisants at Halle come from many European countries including Middle and Eastern Europe. Philosophy and historiography, Arabic inscriptions and belles-lettres, pre-modern and modern history, Islamic law and theology figure among the topics treated in amply documented studies.

The history of Canaan in the Iron Age is generally written from the perspective of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. The scope of this book is to inverse this relation and to focus on "the skirts of Canaan", while regarding the "United Monarchy" and the "Divided Monarchy" as external and sometimes marginal players of the regional history. After having examined the transition from the Late Bronze Age to the Iron Age in the mid-12th century B.C., the book deals thus with the Philistines and the role of Egypt in Canaan during Iron Age II, especially in the face of the Assyrian expansion. It treats further of the Phoenicians and the Aramaeans. There follow five chapters on Bashan, Gilead, Ammon, Moab, and Edom with the Negeb. Several indices facilitate the consultation of the work on particular topics.